


Beer & Blood

by Veldeia



Series: Malt & Mockery [2]
Category: House M.D., Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Crack Crossover, First Aid, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Snark, Sort-of non-consensual drug use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-16
Updated: 2008-07-16
Packaged: 2018-04-04 23:06:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4156341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Veldeia/pseuds/Veldeia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things go from bad to worse when an injured Iron Man crash-lands in House's living room. Could it be the end of a beautiful friendship that's barely begun?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beer & Blood

**Author's Note:**

> Mwahahah, here we go: part 2 of the Tony/House -trilogy. Actually, this is more of a hurt/comfort story than a slash story. I think it's entirely possible to read the UST and innuendoes as nothing serious and just bad humor, if you'd rather see it that way. But that's not what I had in mind...

Gregory House, MD, landed heavily on the sofa, placed the beer bottle on the table and opened the TV. The first thing that came up was a news report on gay marriage. He shook his head, popped a Vicodin and switched the channel.

The National Geographic channel was showing a document on swans. "Swans are monogamous," the narrator explained, "which means that they choose one partner and stay with them all their lives. Because of this, they are often used as a symbol of fidelity and love."

Right. Next channel, and it was Starsky and Hutch.

"Go to hell," House groaned at the television, switched it off and tossed the remote at it, but missed.

He picked up the remote of his stereo instead, and punched play. The dramatic opening motif of Beethoven's 5th symphony filled the room. House rolled his eyes at it. He'd completely forgotten he'd been listening to that yesterday. He let it continue nevertheless, because it did feel suitable.

Yesterday had been his first full day back at work at Princeton-Plainsboro. Today had been the first time he had had a conversation with Wilson since Amber's demise. Possibly the last time, too. It hadn't gone well.

House had walked over to Wilson's office, knocked on the door and stepped in, feeling as nervous as a death row inmate on his way to the execution. Wilson had merely stared at him gloomily without saying a word.

"Wilson... Jim," House had begun. "I just came to tell you I'm sorry, and I hope you can forgive me," he had said, hating how begging his voice sounded.

Wilson had glowered at him some more. "Being sorry isn't going to bring her back."

"Neither is anything else. She's gone, we can't change that. We'll just have to live with it."

"You're clearly having no trouble living with it," Wilson had shouted, and stood up, gesturing angrily. "Look at you, talking about her like... like you're talking about the damn weather! Don't you ever feel anything at all? It's all just puzzles and mind games to you, House, problems to be solved in whichever way pleases you the most! I'll only accept your apology when you manage to sound like you're actually sorry."

"For crying out loud, what do you want me to do? Collapse to the floor crying and tearing my hair?" House had blurted out, because Wilson had been unfair, completely irrational and unreasonable.

"No, House, I don't want you to do anything, except walk out of that door, and never come back," Wilson had said in a superficially calm voice, pointing at the door, shaking with barely restrained fury. "We're through. You've hurt me enough. Find yourself a new victim."

House had walked out, slamming the door behind him like an angry teenager. Wilson had been wrong. House had plenty of feelings, he just hated showing them openly. He longed for Wilson's forgiveness, for his understanding, for one little smile from him, for his gentle touch, and he was genuinely sorry for Amber, even though he wasn't torn to pieces by guilt and grief. He was used to losing patients, he couldn't have saved her, so he wasn't feeling guilty. Except that on some level, he was.

The Vicodin was starting to kick in, offering its momentary relief from the constant ache in his leg. He picked up the beer. Combining those two would make things feel better, the trouble more distant, less overwhelming. He'd start with just one Vicodin and one beer. He'd take more if that didn't feel like enough. He wouldn't want to overdose, he wasn't feeling that desperate. Yet.

He had only taken one sip, when there was a loud crash, the sound of breaking glass from his window, and a draft of cool night air. House got up and turned to face the windowed wall - just in time to see Iron Man land on the floor with a heavy thunk. It sent the room trembling so hard it knocked the beer out of his hand. The bottle fell to the floor and shattered, spilling its contents all over his carpet.

"All right, you get first prize for most dramatic entrance, and a gold star from Alcoholics Anonymous for the timing, but you owe me a beer, a carpet, and a window," House declared, needing quite a bit of effort to keep his voice level.

"Just be glad I didn't make a hole in your floor," Iron Man answered, the helmet covering any emotions Stark's voice might've carried. "I used to do that a lot."

"Why the surprise visit? Missed me?"

One close look at Iron Man gave House a good clue as to the reason of his sudden appearance. Stark was half-kneeling on the floor, one foot in front of the other, with both hands pressed over his left flank. He quickly confirmed House's suspicion. "Sorry to disappoint you," Stark replied, "but this is business, not pleasure." He lifted his hands, revealing a patch in his side where the suit was smashed and broken, and the metal covered in blood.

  


* * *

  


Now that the adrenaline rush from the battle and his subsequent breakneck flight to House's place was fading, Tony was truly beginning to feel the pain. He had no idea what to expect, since he didn't know how bad it was. The helmet limited his vision so that he couldn't get a good look at the injury. All he had were Jarvis's warnings flashing on the HUD, even though he'd already told the AI he'd gotten the message: a 3D-outline of the suit where the damaged part glowed bright red, and the flashing texts "structural integrity compromised" and "seek medical attention". That, and the way he was bleeding, had convinced him that he needed to get this fixed before he went on. Otherwise he'd just end up passing out in front of his enemies even if he managed to catch them. The wound was starting to feel really bad, burning like someone was pressing a branding iron against his side.

"You've got the wrong address," House said, his tone and expression unflappable. "The ER is that way," he pointed at the former window Tony had just crashed through. Tony grinned at House behind his gold-titanium mask. He couldn't think of anyone else who'd be able to take such a situation so calmly.

"You're flattering yourself. I wouldn't be here if I had any other choice. I can't go to the hospital, the bad guys would find me there," he kept it as brief as possible, fighting to hold his composure despite the pain. "And I need to get back to the playing field asap or they'll get away."

The whole story was long and complicated, and telling it all to House would've put him at risk too. It had begun when Tony had half-accidentally found out about a top-secret project that used his weapons designs without his knowledge, let alone consent, and was actually funded by the government, under-the-counter, of course. The thought of it had been enough to send him on one of what Pepper called his "righteous rampages".

He'd stormed the bastards right in the middle of their weapons trial and destroyed all their prototypes, getting injured in the process. He'd definitely pissed off a lot of government people with the stunt, so the chances were that the police and the military, maybe even S.H.I.E.L.D., were looking for him now. On the other hand, the actual developers, who represented a third party so far unknown to Tony, had fled the scene, and Tony was committed to catching them no matter how hard it was. He'd managed to tag one of them with a tracking device, but it was only a question of time when they'd find it. Unless he had visual on them when they debugged themselves, they'd get away with it. They probably still had data on his designs, so they could go on working on the stuff unless he stopped them. He needed to get back on their trail. Before that, he needed House to patch up the hole in his side.

House had walked over and knelt by him, peering at the injury. "Oh, wake up, Stark. You're obviously in no condition to go running around after supervillains. What the hell hit you? I've never seen anything like this."

"A weapon of my own design, as usual," Tony said darkly. "And I've got no choice. Unless I go and stop them, more people will get hurt."

"What do you expect me to do?" House sounded exasperated. "I'm not some magical mutant healer, I can't just make you regenerate. Besides, this is my home. I've barely got any medical supplies at hand."

"Just do what you can. Use duct tape or superglue if you have to. I'll pay you double the usual fee."

House shook his head. "You're out of your mind. Not that it's any news to me. Relay the suit medical data to my laptop," he ordered, and limped to his desk to wake up the computer.

Tony commanded Jarvis to do that - they had downloaded the required programs and set up a link from the suit to House's laptop just in case something like this ever happened. Once he'd done it, Tony sat down on the floor and took off the helmet. His left side was on fire, and even though the wound was quite low, most of it below his ribs, moving his arm sent flares of pain through half his upper body. Now finally able to get a proper look at the injury, he glanced at it, and regretted it instantly. The suit had a ragged hole in it, slightly larger than his hand. The surrounding metal was partially melted, and all that was visible in the opening was a crimson mess. Blood was flowing down the surface of the suit, coloring even the golden parts red, pooling on the floor. Feeling dizzy, Tony looked away and breathed deeply through his nose. He'd been damn lucky. If that bolt had gone a few inches higher and to the right and hit his arc reactor, he'd be dead for sure. Not that it made him feel much better.

"We need to stem that bleeding and fast, or you'll go into shock," House told him in his professional tone, the one that sounded slightly less sneering than his normal speech. He tossed Tony what looked very much like a discarded T-shirt that'd been lying on the floor. "Press that on the wound. I'll go and gather what supplies I can find. Then we'll need to get you out of the suit."

"That won't take long," Tony said, before House had time to turn away from him. He pulled off his right glove and put his thumb on the fingerprint scanner patch on the suit's left shoulder. All the locks unscrewed themselves. After that, it would be just a matter of lifting the numerous parts off him.

House raised his eyebrows. "You never told me about that modification."

"Didn't want to give you any ideas," Tony winked. "You're not allowed to strip me. The only fingerprints that open the locks are mine and Pepper's."

"You might want to reconsider that. Say, if you had passed out when you crashed in here, it would've been nice if I'd have been able to actually treat you, instead of just staring at the suit data and wringing my hands in desperation."

"You just want to get me naked."

"You're delirious. Put some pressure on the wound or you'll bleed to death before we ever get that far," House declared, and started making his way out of the room.

Tony took off the remaining gauntlet, bit his teeth together and held the random piece of clothing tightly against his injured side. He couldn't help groaning. Shit. He hadn't felt pain this bad since Afghanistan.

As he waited for House to return, Tony started disassembling his suit, first using his left hand to get off the right arm and leg, holding the cloth in place with his right hand, then vice versa. He knew enough not to touch the torso parts, because it'd be very hard to get those off without making the injury worse and causing a lot of pain. He had to pause often to take deep breaths, fighting to stay calm and collected - he was half afraid he'd just pass out all of a sudden. The cloth was quickly becoming soaked.

Tony was all done by the time House got back with his arms full of clean cloth and bandages and whatnot. He dumped it all on the sofa and hobbled to the desk to spend a while staring at Tony's vitals on the laptop screen. After that, he walked over to Tony again, set a beige box about the size of a big book on the ground next to him, and started rolling up the right sleeve of Tony's undersuit.

"Care to tell me what you're doing?" Tony asked.

"Making your day. You'll get the good stuff," House replied and, having bared Tony's arm, wrapped a rubber band around his biceps to make the veins stand out. He opened the box and picked up an empty syringe and a vial containing a clear liquid. "Morphine," House held it up to show the label. "You're damn lucky I have any, this isn't exactly something you can just buy from the nearest drugstore."

Though pain medication was definitely a brilliant idea, Tony frowned. "It's likely to make me drowsy, right? I need to be lucid or I won't do any good out there," he nodded towards the window.

House cast one of those icy-blue glances of his at Tony and shook his head slightly. "I could just feed you a few Vicodin, then you could cry like a baby and squirm around because it hurts so bad. As much as I'd enjoy torturing you, it would make my job a lot more difficult. Since you said you're in a hurry, I thought this is the better alternative," he explained. Without waiting for Tony's approval, House stuck the needle into his arm and started pressing the plunger slowly.

"How much are you giving me?"

House peered at him from under his eyebrows with a crooked grin. "Enough."

It took quite a while before House had injected it all. Tony thought it looked like a lot, but then again, he wasn't a doctor and couldn't really tell. Besides, he felt so horrible that more than anything, he just wanted the agony to go away as soon as possible, no matter the means. More was better if you thought about it that way.

It took maybe five more minutes before the pain started ebbing away, and not long after that, Tony began to feel like he was no longer sitting on the floor, but floating in the air several inches above it.

Well, well. The good stuff, indeed.

  


* * *

  


Damn, I really must be falling for this guy, House thought to himself. He could barely believe he'd just wasted almost half of his much-too-small supply of morphine on Stark. Then again, he could always get more morphine, but he couldn't get another Tony Stark if something bad happened to this one.

Of course, House had now pretty much sealed his fate where Stark was concerned. Considering how exhausted Stark looked and how bad a state he was in, a dose this high should be enough to make him extremely sleepy. Stark would be furious at House once he'd made it through this and realized what House had done. There was no way Stark would let him keep the job as his advisor after this, but that was inevitable. If House had followed Stark's wishes, patched him up haphazardly and let him fly into the night, Stark wouldn't have made it.

House was known for using any means necessary to save his patients, and this was a prime example of that, although not exactly. House could no longer consider Stark just another patient. He appreciated the man a lot, and, he had to admit, had actually grown to like him quite a bit. He suddenly remembered what Wilson had said earlier: "Find yourself a new victim." It seemed he had done just that. He grinned at the thought.

House kept a close eye on Stark's vitals as he waited for the drug to take effect. Stark was already bordering on shock, and the morphine could make him worse. House's fingers clenched around the cell phone in his pocket. If things started looking bad, he'd call for help without a second thought. So far, everything was narrowly within acceptable limits.

When Stark let his hands slide slackly to his sides, releasing the pressure he'd been keeping on the wound, House hurried to grab a clean towel and place it against the injury instead. Stark stared at him, slightly cross-eyed, with clearly constricted pupils. His face was still pale and drenched in sweat, but the look of anguish was completely gone. Instead, he wore a vague smile.

"How're you feeling?" House asked him.

"Ohh, just great," Stark answered dreamily.

"Your side doesn't hurt anymore?"

"Just sort of tickles."

"That's good, we'll take off the rest of your armor then."

"Go ahead, Greg, fulfill your fantasies."

Smirking at Stark's words, House lifted off the towel to look at the wound. He didn't even know how to classify it. It was an oval-shaped open wound, about the size of his hand, and it actually looked as if something had vaporized the top layers of the skin. It was still bleeding. House frowned. The more he thought about this, the more certain he felt that he should've just called an ambulance right away, regardless of what Stark had said.

Stark's chin was resting on his chestplate now, his eyes closed. "Stark!" House shouted at him.

"Whuh?" he looked up, blinking. "Hey, I'm in a hurry, right? I'm supposed to be going somewhere?"

House almost - but just almost - felt mean as he answered, "No, not really. It's nothing that can't wait. Just relax."

"Relax. I'm fine with that," Stark mumbled, and started to nod off again.

House grabbed his shoulder. "Hey, just stay with me a while longer, I need your help with this."

Stark stared at him, his dark eyes glazed. "Yeah, whatever... Greg, you have really pretty eyes, did you know that? Very blue," he waved an uncoordinated hand at House.

"Why, thank you, Tony," House replied, knowing that the sarcasm in his voice was completely lost on Stark. "Hold your hand over there," he lifted Stark's left hand over his head, to keep it out of the way. Then, he started stripping off the remaining pieces of the Iron Man suit. The metal was partly melted into the flesh at the edges of the wound. It looked nasty, and sure enough, when House tore it off, Stark flinched.

"Ow. I felt that."

"Oh, I'm so sorry. Not," House said, and pulled off another part of the armor.

"Agh," Stark gasped. "This is kind of kinky, isn't it?"

"Whatever floats your boat," House answered. "Though since I'm getting paid for this, I'm not sure I like the implications."

"House, you whore," Stark snickered.

House decided to let that one go, since he had now gotten off all of Stark's armor. The wound was bleeding copiously again. It might've been more prudent to leave the armor as it was, but it would've had to come off sooner or later anyway. Stark still wore the undersuit, and that was completely meshed into the ragged edges of the injury, even worse than the metal had been.

House's decision was clear now. He helped Stark lay down on the floor and waited. After a few more drunkenly slurred remarks - "Mmm, shouldn't you be wearing leather?" - "Hey, isn't this like a date rape?" - which House ignored, Stark finally closed his eyes and went to sleep.

House cast a wistful glance at the laptop screen. Though most of the suit's medical scanners were actually built into the undersuit, the transmitter was in the armor, so House no longer had any readings. He checked Stark's pulse, which felt thready. Now able to work briskly since Stark was unconscious, House bandaged the wound as best he could, wiped his hands on a clean cloth, and picked up his cell phone to make the call.

Obviously, Stark had been worried that someone was looking for him, and, of course, there was always the press to worry about. What Stark had been wrong about was, it didn't mean he couldn't go to the hospital. It shouldn't be too difficult to keep a low profile with this. House was careful to keep the exact details vague enough as he explained things on the phone. He would personally take care of everything once they got to Princeton-Plainsboro.

He was still on the phone, when Stark unexpectedly spoke up. "Mm, hey, who're you talking to?"

"Never mind that."

"Hey, wait," Stark opened his eyes, his expression surprisingly alert and worried. "The mission! I have to go," he tried to get up, only to land on the floor again. "Shit, too dizzy."

"Just hurry up, will you?" House finished the phone call, and sat by Stark's side, placing a hand on his chest. "Stay put, Stark. You can't go anywhere, you're too sick."

"But I was..." Stark began, peering at him owlishly, and suddenly, there was a flash of understanding on his face. "House, no! You son of a bitch, you..."

Oh damn. House grimaced. Stark was actually fighting the sedation. This wasn't good. He couldn't have Stark opposing the EMT's once they arrived - Stark might be able to stop them from taking him by sheer force of personality - let alone have him raging mad at the hospital. A conscious and even semi-coherent Stark would make everything much too complicated, if not completely impossible.

House's mind was rapidly working out his options. Stark wasn't doing good, but he was too lucid. House could think of a dozen drugs he could use to knock Stark out with relative safety, but he hadn't got any of those here. Most of what he had was in pill form, which wouldn't do. His choices were awfully limited. The good thing was, the ambulance should arrive in a matter of minutes, and they'd have proper care - and opioid antagonists.

House picked up the morphine vial, filled a syringe and, before Stark had time to react, jabbed the needle into his arm.

"No, no, don't, you can't," Stark protested, and tried to wrench his hand away from House. All he managed was a useless twitch, since House had a firm grip of his forearm.

"It's generally not a good idea to move your arm when there's a needle in your cephalic vein," House told him.

Stark stopped trying to fight him off, but glared at him with a look of pure venom. As soon as House had pulled the needle out of his arm, Stark reached out clumsily with his other hand and managed to grab House's collar. "House, you're fired," he growled. "And dead."

He held House's shirt in his grasp for maybe a minute, staring at him murderously. Then his grip loosened and he slid back to the floor, looking like he'd used his last energy reserves on the furious outburst. He was breathing unevenly, and his eyelids were drooping over pupils the size of pinpricks.

"I know, I know," House said softly. "Just go to sleep."

Whether or not Stark heard House's words, he followed his orders nevertheless. House held a hand over his face to make sure he was still breathing, then moved it to his neck to take his pulse. The combination of morphine overdose and blood loss would inevitably make Stark's blood pressure too low, and the overdose could lead to respiratory arrest. The thought that House's gamble could actually kill Stark was so chilling that he forced it out of his mind as soon as it came. It was a calculated risk. The ambulance would be here soon. Stark would be all right.

As if with a will of its own, House's hand wandered upwards, his fingers sinking into Stark's thick, dark hair. Quickly, he turned it into a gesture that made sense medically - he gripped the locks to tilt Stark's head back, to secure his airway. Great self-deception, House, he congratulated himself.

Staring at Stark's slack, ashen face, House felt even more depressed than earlier in the evening. He'd been told, more than once, that he actually wanted to be miserable, that he kept pushing people away from him because he couldn't allow himself to be happy. And here he was, driving away yet another person who had dared to approach him, with whom he might have become friends, or more. After this, there was no way that could happen. He'd be lucky if Stark didn't sue him in addition to firing him, even if everything House had done had been to save his life. Even though House didn't regret having done what had to be done, he felt sorry about the consequences.

The minutes ticked away, and House started growing restless and worried. He kept checking Stark's vitals, more often than was strictly necessary. Finally, he could hear the siren of the approaching ambulance, and not long after, the EMTs were at his door. House couldn't help being amused at the baffled looks on their faces as they took in the sight - the bloodstains and the smashed beer bottle on the floor, the empty syringes, the discarded pieces of Iron Man armor, and the easily recognizable figure of Tony Stark lying unconscious in the middle of it all.

"You haven't seen any of this, and he's just a John Doe," House declared to them in his most intimidating voice, and decided to add a few cliches to make it even more convincing. "By God, if you ever tell anyone about this, you'll be in so much trouble you'll wish you'd never be born."

The EMT's glanced at each other, wide-eyed, and nodded at House.

  


* * *

  


Tony woke up in a featureless hospital room, surrounded by a whole battery of monitoring equipment, with absolutely no memory of how he'd gotten there. He felt hung over, and there was a burning pain in his left side that must've been what had woken him up. He pushed the covers lower and peeked inside his hospital gown to take a look. Sure enough, a sizable part of his side was covered in bandages. What the hell had he done to himself this time?

He concentrated on the last blurry memories he could come up with. There had been a fight - of course there had, since he was injured. A fight with guys who had been using his weapons designs. Nothing new there, either. He had flown over to House's place for first aid, and House had... House, goddamn it! Tony had trusted him, had actually been starting to like him - and this was the thanks he got?

He sat bolt upright in his bed, but the movement sent waves of agony through his side and made his head swim. He fell back.

There was the sound of a door opening and closing. Tony turned to look, and recognized Doctor Kutner, the young and very enthusiastic member of House's diagnostics team.

"Good morning, Mr. Stark," Kutner greeted him cheerfully.

"Morning of...? How long have I been here?" Tony asked, slightly apprehensive of the answer.

"Just overnight. It's actually not morning, it's past midday, and they brought you in at around midnight."

"How bad is it?"

"Well, you've made it through the morphine overdose without any lasting consequences. It was touch and go for a while there, because you had also lost a lot of blood. Your side is going to take quite a while to mend completely, and it'll probably leave an ugly scar."

"I didn't mean that. I meant the press fallout," Tony clarified his earlier words. Oh hell, the media would have such a field day with this. He could already see the headlines - "Tony Stark's drug overdose - partying gone too wild, or a desperate attempt to end it all?" He also remembered that since that fight yesterday, he was at odds with the government. He wondered why they hadn't showed up yet, and what they would do with him once they did.

"No need to worry about that," Kutner said, smiling. "House took care of everything. No one knows you're here, you're admitted as a John Doe who's a patient of the Diagnostics Department, and no one has seen you except for us and a few nurses. After what House said to them, I'm sure they'd rather jump off the roof of the building than tattle to the reporters about you."

"Where's House?"

"Somewhere around here. He spent most of the night by your side, but he's been avoiding you after that."

"Smart move. He knows I want to kill him," Tony declared darkly.

"Huh?" Kutner's eyes were wide with surprise. "I thought he saved your life."

Maybe he had, Tony couldn't be certain about that, but whatever the truth was, the way he'd done it was unforgivable. "Like hell he did," Tony told Kutner. "And he definitely won't be able to save his own once I get my hands on him."


End file.
